Falls affect millions of people each year and result in significant injuries, particularly in the elderly. In fact, it has been estimated that falls are one of the top three causes of death in elderly people.
A fall is defined as a sudden, uncontrolled and unintentional downward displacement of the body to the ground. There are currently some fall detection systems available that detect these falls and allow the user to obtain assistance manually or automatically if a fall occurs. Exemplary fall detectors can comprise personal help buttons (PHBs) or worn and/or environment-based automatic detectors.
Automatic fall detectors comprise one or a set of sensors that measure the movement of the user, and a processor that compares the measured or processed signals with predetermined thresholds in order to detect a fall. In particular, automatic fall detectors store a set of predetermined threshold values and/or parameter sets. When the detector is activated, movement data obtained from the sensors (such as, for example, an accelerometer) will be continuously transformed and processed, and then compared with those parameter sets to determine if a fall event occurs.
Although these fall detectors are useful, they do not actually prevent falling, and only provide a warning or alarm in the event that a user already has fallen.
However, users that are insecure during walking, for example caused or enhanced by a fear of falling, by fatigue in the muscles, by frequently multi-tasking (i.e. they are carrying items when walking, talking to their grandchild, etc, or that move in places where there is dim lighting, a wet or irregular ground surface—such as loose carpet, electricity wires, toys, tools, and other hazards) or that are under medication that may affect balance or concentration, can be assisted by a device for fall prevention that decreases the actual risk of falling, or at least alerts the user that they are at a higher risk of falling at a particular time, and makes them feel more safe.
There is therefore a need for a method and device that can determine an instantaneous fall risk for a user.